An Issue that gets in my way of becoming clean, is that besides for the fact that I'm a sick man that craves p**rn and to feed my eyes on the street and do a lot of fantasizing, i also have a very Curios nature. Curiosity in general has a good and a bad side the bad side is, at least in my case, that even in a case where it's not harmful it can sometimes carry me away. When i see an innocent  piece of news or anything else I'll go into details upon details it sometimes takes me awhile before I realized how much time I've wasted on that. My curiosity is something like a passion.

But this is not the whole thing, and I wouldn't of brought it up here if not for  the real problem which is when the thing I'm interested in has an inappropriate part and when  looking around for information I'll also end up finding out things that would've been better left out and thinking about things better left out of the mind. (IT JUST DOESN'T BELONG THERE)

I'm sure there are others with the same problem and I would like this to be a place where people with the same issue can discuss this or maybe we can hear from somebody who has struggled with it and overcame this

Any thoughts anyone, JUST Curious

I just wrote a whole reply and I wasnt even logged in

basically the idea is that if you experience using yonur curiosity for things that actually make a difference in your life and others,then you lose interest  finding out things that are meaningless.You start asking yourself why do I need to know how anthony weiner looks in just a bathrobe,or how any of his or arnold shwatzenegerr's shikses look like.because you had the experience of finding out something new and actually applying it to enhance your life or the life of others around you.

lookingforwisdom wrote on 20 Jun 2011 14:46:


I share your problem. Also awaiting for the input of the wise men.

mechazek wrote on 20 Jun 2011 20:10:


I guess that also means one should cut down the time he spends reading just regular news, in the end what difference do most news stories make to someone on a personal matter.

Thank any way and sorry for losing your post

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 20 Jun 2011 20:50:


you see there's a lot of  good in curiosity it keeps you looking for wisdom

I dont think that means you should cut down anything,just you should experience the middah of curiosity in a way that has meaning,that you or some one else was affected by.
I allso think it is important to discuss,where did this curiosity end up taking you?how far?

Well some times I see it as a boundary issues.  There is nothing wrong with curiosity per se, but the issue is understand and respecting boundaries.  The ikar is boundaries and measurements, and receiving the amazing light of Torah all depends on developing our boundaries and "middos", i.e. measurements.  We need to become "vessels" to absorb the kedusha, and by visiting sights of shmutz, looking beyond our 4 amot at pritzus, all that breaks the barriers and interferes with our ability to cleave to H". 

I'm talking like I've mastered all this, but truth be told, I often break through these barriers.  As a kid I would often climb fences, and in fact sometimes the entire fence fell down.  I am working on it, day by day.  "Keep it simple". 

It definitely is a boundary issue but sometimes even following a news item like last week I was following (well something...) looking first at innocent information but then when i found myself in front of the screen with some not such a nice image on it, and B"H HASHEM with his grace aloud me to say enough B"H I closed it, but not before that image went into my mind. Which made me thinking I should probably have stopped before it even got into that area.

Based on my experience, curiousity is not a good thing.  I am sure many of us on this forum realized that our curiosity has taken us too far in the past. 
My simple aitza is stay away from it as much as possible.  If we really need to see or find something out important, we will eventually.  The man with the yellow hat will not be able to save us in this story.

One of the GYE Greats (I don't recall who, possibly on the nightly Shemiras Einayim Calls) s=advied that we train ourselves to not follow our curious tendencies. When we notice something interesting - non-lust related, we should withstand the urge to look.

We should do this exercise every day, gradually increasing its frequency. We will be weening ourselves off from 'having' to check out every thing that catches our eyes!

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 21 Jun 2011 17:29:

the way i heard it is that he was talking about during learning gemorah or any type of torah to try to keep our eyes in the sefer the whole time and to work on curiosity then,
but its the same idea, if we work on our curiosity a little bit at a time, we will get better at controlling it.

Mar amar chada, umar amar chada, v'lo paligi.

What you posted is not what I am referring to, though.  ;D




I was referring to specifically something which is non-Torah or Recovery or Street related!

Anytime ANYTHING piques your curiosity, for example when you hear the door to the room creak (or is it squeaks ?) open, the natural tendency of most people - especially the curious kind - is to turn their head to see who just walked in. We should try to avoid those urges. We should NOT turn to look. The act of NOT GIVING IN to our curiosity will train us to be a bit less curious. It will teach us that we do not have to 'check this out'....

Thanks Yosef Hatzadik and HashemsSoldier

As is the case with me and problably many others it's not keeping my attention focused when doing something that's an issue, I usaly won't turn around for everything that I hear (unless I'm board by the subject) what I'm talking about is following something that interests us following all the details almost like chasing it nonetheless we should grudualy be working on curbing this